Evolutionists sometimes argue that even
though there appears to be so much evidence for intelligent design in the
universe, it is all really just an illusion, because, if a Creator really
existed, He would surely show Himself. So, they argue that because they
can’t see the Creator, He must not exist. This argument may
sound good at first, but, if you pause to think about it, we all believe in
the reality of many things even though we cannot see them with
our eyes. Gravity, magnetic fields, and radio waves are good examples. We
can’t see such things with our eyes but we know that they exist because of
their effects. In other words, we can’t see them but we know they
exist because we can see what they do. Likewise, we can’t see
God (Who is Spirit) but we can understand that He exists through the
evidence of the universe He has created. (Romans 1:20)

Such evidence is not enough to satisfy many
evolutionists. They insist that, “A God who cannot be seen is imaginary.
Or, if He does exist, He is a worthless God and might as well be imaginary
since He never chooses to reveal Himself in tangible form.” The following
parable illustrates their argument:

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a
clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers...One
explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” The other disagrees,
“There is no gardener.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No
gardener is ever seen. “But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.” So they
set up a barbed wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with
bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well’s The Invisible Man
could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no
shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements
of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give
cry. Yet still the believer is not convinced. “But there is a gardener,
invisible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who comes secretly to
look after the garden which he loves.” At last the skeptic despairs, “But
what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an
invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary
gardener or even from no gardener at all?

This parable is a scathing indictment
against all theistic truth claims save that of the Christian faith. For in
Christianity we do not have merely an allegation that the “garden” of this
world was created by a loving “Gardener;” we have the actual, empirical
entrance of the “Gardener” into the human scene in the person of Jesus
Christ. This entrance is verifiable by way of the historical fact of His
resurrection.

The ultimate nightmare for thoroughgoing
evolutionists is to have the Creator Himself show up, perform miracles of
creation, and thereby demonstrate His Divine credentials for all to see.
This is exactly what history tells us happened with the appearance of Jesus
Christ! His impact on humanity was so great that it literally split history
in two! Accordingly, to this day our calendars are gauged by the date of
His birth.

The contention that the Creator really did
enter into human history in the person of Jesus Christ is more than many
evolutionists and skeptics can stand to hear. They seem to just close their
minds at this point. Not only do they reject the massive historical
testimony about Christ in the New Testament documents, some even go so far
as to claim that Christ was just a myth or a legend. “He never really
existed and there is no sound historical basis for claiming He ever
existed,” they boldly assert. Facts, however, are stubborn things and the
unimpeachable facts of secular history disseminate this
pseudo-intellectual and inexcusably ignorant claim.

Not only do secular historians of first
century antiquity confirm Christ as a literal person, their testimony even
confirms the general historical outline of the New Testament. Consider the
testimony of first century Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus who wrote of
Nero’s attempt to absolve himself of the guilt of burning Rome by falsely
blaming it on the Christians:

Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely
charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the
persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.
Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate,
procurator of Judea in the region of Tiberius: but the pernicious
superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea,
where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also (Annals
XV.44).

In Tacitus we have a great historian and a
man of massive intelligence. Carefully observe that he used the name of
Christ and assigned Him to the exact time and place he is given by the New
Testament. There can be no question of Christ being a myth conjured up by
Christians for Tacitus wrote this history.

The Jewish historian, Josephus, a
contemporary of the apostles of Christ, gives many references to historical
figures who are also mentioned in the New Testament documents. Historical
scholar, F. F. Bruce, summarized this historical correlation:

Here, in the pages of Josephus, we meet
many figures who are well known to us from the New Testament; the colorful
family of the Herods; the Roman emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and
the procurators of Judea; the high priestly families - Annas, Caiaphas,
Ananias, and the rest; the Pharisees and the Sadducees; and so on.

Moreover, Josephus wrote of “the brother of
Jesus, the so-called Christ, whose name was James...” (Antiquities XX
9:1). An Israeli scholar, professor Schlomo Pines of the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, called attention to a forgotten Arabic text of Josephus
apparently dating back to a period earlier than other known texts.
Professor Pines quotes the Arabic version in a monograph which was published
by the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1971. It reads:

Similarly Josephus, the Hebrew. For he
says: “At this time there was a wise man called Jesus, and his conduct was
good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews
and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be
crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not
abandon their discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them
three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive. Accordingly, he was
perhaps the Messiah [another possible rendering from the Arabic: “thought to
be the Messiah”] concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.”

It is quite probable that Josephus was
early translated into a Syriac version, and the Arabic derived from that.
Above all, this evidence sets Josephus, the Jewish historian, alongside the
Roman historian Tacitus as another first century witness to the historical
reality of the person Jesus Christ. As Dr. Norman Geisler has pointed out
there are yet several other historical witnesses whose writings confirm the
general historical witnesses and quotes them in his book Christian
Apologetics:

Greek Satirist, Lucian

Roman historian, Suetonius

Pliny the Younger

Samaritan-born historian, Thallus

Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion

The Jewish Talmud

Dr. Geisler concludes:

Combining the above secular testimony to
Christ, we get the following picture: (1) Jesus was crucified under
Pontius Pilate at Passover time. (2) He was believed by his disciples to
have risen from the dead three days later. (3) Jewish leaders charged
Christ with sorcery and believed he was born of adultery. (4) The Judean
sect of Christianity could not be contained but spread even to Rome. (5)
Nero and other Roman rulers bitterly persecuted and martyred early
Christians. (6) These early Christians denied polytheism, lived dedicated
lives according to Christ’s teachings, and worshipped Christ. This picture
is perfectly congruent with that of the New Testament.

As the lawyers say, “The case rests!” The
secular historical evidence is such that entirely apart from any Christian
testimony, there can be no doubt at all that Jesus was a literal figure of
history. In this regard, outstanding scholar F. F. Bruce of the University
of Manchestor observed:

Some writers may toy with the fancy of a
“Christ-myth,” but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence.
The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the
historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the
“Christ-myth” theories.

Dr. E. M. Blaiklock asks this penetrating
question:

Why the unease over a historical Jesus? It
cannot simply be a scholar’s zeal for truth. Julius Caesar is not thus
dismissed, or his rather unsuccessful reconnaissance across the English
Channel relegated to legend, despite the fact that our principal informant
is Julius himself (in a book designed to secure his political reputation)
and that confirmatory evidence of that campaign consists merely of a shield
in the river at the Chelsea crossing of the Thames, a few lines in Cicero’s
voluminous correspondence, and only a handful of later references.

It is difficult to lose from history one
who has truly lived. Personalities appear and are listed confidently as
real with little but a half-forgotten name, a profile on a coin, or a
fragmentary inscription to authenticate their existence. The quarter of
Alenader’s empire which lay toward the east in Bactria and India is known
only from archaeological and numismatic records; many of its rulers are
named and their actual existence unquestioned. Ancient history would
provide similar illustrations of persons and events, slenderly documented,
which provoke no great enthusiasm to refute and obliterate. Why this
widespread desire to be rid of Jesus?

The answer appears obvious. If one
acknowledges the existence of Christ one must deal with His claims that He
is the Creator and the Savior of the world. Therefore, in an attempt to
escape this accountability, some prefer to ignore the facts of history and
sidestep the issue entirely by claiming that Christ was just a legend. And
yet, this towering figure of history and His monumental claims cannot be so
easily forgotten. As Dr. Blaiklock rightfully concludes:

Times change. Habits change. Nations and
men disastrously forget their history. They never forget Jesus of
Nazareth. He still inspires love stronger than death. No century has seen
more martyrs than this. He still stirs the desire to be rid of His haunting
challenge, to deny the claims that He ever was, or, if He was, to prove that
He was not as His followers proclaimed Him. He is shown in rock opera and
film as men strive to bring this extraordinary Person down to the common
level. “Are You what You say You are?” they plead, then close their ears.
But the answer remains the same.

Quite apart from the question whether the
behests of Christ are acceptable or scorned, and whether that astonishingly
documented story of the empty tomb is believed or disbelieved, it remains
true that no responsible historian can dismiss the historical reality of
Jesus...Jesus lived according to the proportions which the New Testament
sets forth - no self-deluded, tragic failure, no invention of enthusiasts,
but the most extraordinary being who ever trod the earth. Nineteen
centuries of history have been influenced and penetrated by Him. As the
brilliant Frenchman Ernest Renan, one of the forerunners of skeptical New
Testament criticism and himself no Christian, remarked in a famous
peroration, Jesus Christ has been “so completely the cornerstone of humanity
that to tear His name from the world, would be to shake it to its
foundations.” Most students of history would abandon their quest for truth
if it could be proved that the record of events which affect almost two
millennia arose from the naive delusions or criminal deceptions of a band of
simple Jews, who created out of nothing native to their minds the whole
transforming story.

And what of the New Testament? Should its
massive historical data concerning Christ be rejected? Indeed it should if it fails to adequately pass the established tests used to
evaluate all ancient histories. However, if the New Testament documents
pass these tests then there is no legitimate reason to reject their explicit
history of the life of Christ.

Military historian, Chauncey Sanders, lists
three major tests used to establish the validity of ancient histories: the
internal evidence test, the external evidence test, and the bibliographical
test. The internal evidence test is concerned primarily with whether or not
the history was given by eye-witnesses who published their testimony during
the lifetimes of those who were contemporaries of the events described. The
external evidence test asks if the historical document in question is, or is
not, disqualified by contradicting well-established facts of history known
from external historical sources or from archaeology. The bibliographical
test examines the manuscript authority of the historical text based on the
number of manuscripts in existence and their closeness to the original.
When the New Testament documents are examined by these three crucial
historical tests, we find that the New Testament not only passes all of
them, but does so with tremendously higher honors than any other document
from antiquity!

The Reliability of the New Testament

Because the New Testament provides the
primary historical source for information on the life of Jesus Christ,
numerous critics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have attacked the
reliability of the New Testament documents. There has been a seemingly
endless barrage of accusations despite the fact that these allegations have
no factual historical foundation or have now been disproved and outdated by
archaeological discoveries.

Commonly, these accusations are based on
the erroneous conclusions of the German critic, F. C. Baur. Without
adequate historical justification, Baur assumed that most of the New
Testament documents were not written until late in the second century A.D.
He alleged that these writings came basically from myths or legends that had
developed during the supposed lengthy interval between the lifetime of
Christ and the time these accounts were actually set down in writing.

By the twentieth century, however,
historical and archaeological discoveries had confirmed the accuracy and
early dates of the New Testament manuscripts. Discoveries of very early
papyri manuscripts (the Bodmer Papyri II, the Chester Beatty Papyri, and the
John Ryland Manuscript) bridged the gap between the time of Christ and
existing manuscripts from a later date.

William F. Albright, who was the world’s
foremost Biblical archaeologist and paleographer concluded:

All radical schools in New Testament
criticism which have existed in the past or which exist today are
pre-archaeological, and are, therefore, since they were built In der Luft
[in the air], quite antiquated today.

Albright further declared: “We can already
say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book
of the New Testament after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the
date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of
today.” He reiterated this view during an interview for a well-known
magazine: “In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by a
baptized Jew between the forties and the eighties of the first century A.D.
(very probably sometime between about A.D. 50 and 75).”

Well known historical scholar and lecturer,
Josh McDowell further points out: “Many of the liberal scholars are being
forced to consider earlier dates for the New Testament. Dr. John A. T.
Robinson’s conclusion in his new book Redating the New Testament is
startlingly radical [for a liberal]. His research led to the conviction
that the whole of the New Testament was written before the Fall of Jerusalem
in A.D. 70.”

Sir William Ramsay is recognized as one of
the greatest archaeologists of all time. He had been a student of the
German historical school which taught that the Book of Acts was penned in
the middle of the second century A.D. rather than in the first century.
Having studied the claims of liberal critics of the Book of Acts, Ramsay
became convinced that Acts was not a trustworthy account of mid-first
century history and was accordingly unworthy of consideration by a serious
historian. However, when researching the first century history of Asia
Minor, he decided to examine the writings of Luke (the author of the Book of
Acts) firsthand. Upon doing so he found that Luke recorded historical
details with meticulous accuracy. He also found that many of the assertions
of the liberal scholars he had studied were unsubstantiated. Thus his
attitude about the Book of Acts gradually changed. He was finally swayed
completely when archaeological and historical discoveries conclusively
demonstrated that Luke had to be a first century writer and that certain
details of his writing, first considered false, were finally proven to be
true. Ramsay was forced by such facts to conclude that, “Luke is a
historian of the first rank...this author should be placed along with the
very greatest of historians.”

Of all the archaeological finds in the
middle east, not one can be said to unquestionably contradict the history
recorded in the New Testament documents. On the other hand, literally
hundreds of finds have confirmed the New Testament presentation, even in
matters of minute detail. Archaeologist Joseph Free attested, “Archaeology
has confirmed countless [Biblical] passages which have been rejected by
critics as unhistorical or contradictory to known facts.” The situation is
well summarized in the words of distinguished Roman historian A. N.
Sherwin-White concerning the writings of Luke:

For Acts the confirmation of historicity is
overwhelming...Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters
of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for
granted.

The real irony of the situation is that
nowadays professional historians accept the historicity of the New
Testament. It is the liberal critics using unfounded philosophical and
pre-archaeological assumptions who unjustly reject the historicity of the
New Testament.

One of the favorite assumptions of the
critics is that the New Testament history was passed on by word of mouth
until it was finally written down long after the events occurred. They
assume that the Gospel accounts took on the forms of folk literature
(legends, tales, and myths) during the supposed lengthy interval between the
time of the events and the time the history was actually set down in
writing. In light of the evidence showing the New Testament was recorded
primarily in the mid-first century, this presupposition of the critics is
foundationless. The period of supposed oral transmission of the New
Testament (as defined by the critics) is simply not long enough to allow the
changes in the message which these critics have alleged. Noting the brevity
of the time element involved in the writing of the New Testament, Simon
Kistemaker, professor at Dordt College, wrote:

Normally the accumulation of folklore among
people of primitive culture takes many generations; it is a gradual process
spread over centuries of time. But in conformity with the thinking of the
form critic, we must conclude that the Gospel stories were produced and
collected within little more than one generation.

Though not a Christian, Paul L. Maier,
professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, admitted:
“Arguments that Christianity hatched its Easter myth over a lengthy period
of time or that the sources were written many years after the event are
simply not factual.”

Analyzing modern liberal criticism, William
F. Albright wrote: “Only modern scholars who lack both historical method
and perspective can spin such a web of speculation as that with which form
critics have surrounded the Gospel tradition.” Albright then firmly
concluded, “A period of twenty to fifty years is too slight to permit any
appreciable corruption of the essential content and even of the specific
wording of the sayings of Jesus.”

At this point many skeptics argue that
although the evidence indicates the eyewitness accounts were recorded soon
after the events, centuries of copying and recopying the text allowed much
corruption and interpolation to significantly alter the original testimony.
After all, stories abound of zealous monks in the middle ages who copied the
New Testament, but in doing so, changed the text to fit their own ideals of
who Christ really was. After so many centuries of handwritten transmission,
how can we trust our present New Testament text to accurately deliver the
original testimony? Fortunately, we don’t have to guess about this matter.
This same type of question is asked about all histories from antiquity and
the historical bibliographical test is used to determine the accuracy of
transmission.

The Bibliographical Test

The bibliographical test involves an
examination of the textual transmission by which historical documents reach
us. That is, not having the original documents, how reliable are the copies
we have in regard to the number of manuscripts and the time interval between
the original and the closest copies?

We can best comprehend the superior wealth
of manuscript authority for the New Testament by comparing it with textual
material from other notable literature of antiquity.

The history written by Thucydides (460-400
B.C.) is available to us from only eight manuscripts dated about A.D. 900.
This is nearly 1,300 years after he wrote the original manuscripts. The
manuscripts giving the history of Herodotus are likewise late and rare.
None-the-less, as F. F. Bruce concludes, “No classical scholar would listen
to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt
because the earliest manuscripts of their works which are of use to us are
over 1,300 years later than the originals.”

Aristotle penned his poetics around 343
B.C. and yet the earliest copy we possess is dated A.D. 1100. This
represents nearly a 1,400 year gap, and only five manuscripts are in
existence.

Caesar wrote his history of the Gallic Wars
between 58 and 50 B.C. and its manuscript authority rests on only ten copies
which are dated at 1,000 years after his death.

When it comes to manuscript authority from
antiquity the New Testament leads all others by a staggering margin. After
the significant early papyri manuscript discoveries which bridged the gap
between the time of Christ and the second century A.D., an abundance of
other manuscripts came to light. Today, over 24,000 copies of New Testament
manuscripts are known to exist. In comparison, the Iliad has only
643 manuscripts and yet is second in manuscript authority after the New
Testament.

The advantage in having such a vast
abundance of manuscripts is that it makes it easy to compare manuscripts to
decipher where and when any changes in the text may have occurred. Using
this process (known as textual criticism) scholars have found that there is
only one half of one percent of the New Testament in which there is any
question of whether that part of the text was in the original - and none of
that minute questionable portion has anything to do with any important
Christian doctrine.

Author

When Written

Earliest Copy

Number of Copies

Caesar

100 - 44 B.C.

900 A.D.

10

Plato (Tetralogies)

427 - 347 B.C.

900 A.D.

7

Tacitus (Annals)

100 A.D.

1100 A.D.

20

Pliny the Younger

61 - 113 A.D.

50 A.D.

7

Thucydides

460 - 400 B.C.

900 A.D.

8

Suetonius

75 - 160 A.D.

950 A.D.

8

Herodotus

480 - 425 B.C.

900 A.D.

8

Sophocles

796 - 406 B.C.

1000 A.D.

193

Catullus

54 B.C.

1550 A.D.

3

Euripides

480 - 406 B.C.

1100 A.D.

9

Demosthenes

383 - 322 B.C.

1100 A.D.

200*

Aristotle

384 - 382 B.C.

1100 A.D.

49*

Aristophanes

450 - 385 B.C.

900 A.D.

10

Homer (Iliad)

900 B.C.

400 B.C.

643

New Testament

40 - 100 A.D.

125 A.D.

24,000 +

* Demotheses - All 200 copies derived from
just one copy.

* Aristotle - No more than 49 copies of
any one work.

The New Testament Greek authority, J.
Harold Greenlee, adds:

Since scholars accept as generally
trustworthy the writings of the ancient classics even though the earliest
MSS. [manuscripts] were written so long after the original writings and the
number of extant MSS. is in many instances so small, it is clear that the
reliability of the text of the New Testament is likewise assured.

Dr. Norman Geisler summarizes:

Both the authenticity and the
historicity of the New Testament documents are firmly established today.
The authentic nature and vast amount of the manuscript evidence is
overwhelming compared to the classical texts from antiquity. Furthermore,
many of the original manuscripts date from within twenty to thirty years of
the events in Jesus’ life, that is, from contemporaries and eyewitnesses.

The historicity of these
contemporary accounts of Christ’s life, teachings, death, and resurrection
is also established on firm historical grounds. The integrity of the New
Testament writers is established by the character of the witnesses as well
as by the quantity and independent nature of their witness. As to the
accuracy of their reports there is support in general from the secular
history of the first century and in particular from numerous archaeological
discoveries supporting specific details of the New Testament account.

Sir Frederick Kenyon, who had been the
director and principal librarian at the British Museum and second to none in
authority for issuing judgments about manuscripts, concludes:

The interval then between the dates of
original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to
be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the
Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now
been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books
of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.

The application of the bibliographical test
to the New Testament demonstrates that it has more manuscript authority than
any thirty works of ancient literature combined. Adding to that
authority the more than 100 years of intensive New Testament textual
criticism, one can conclude that beyond any reasonable doubt an authentic
New Testament text has been established.

The Messiah of Prophecy

Jesus Christ is truly unique. One major
distinguishing characteristic of Jesus was His constant and empathic claim
to be God manifest in human flesh. He consistently claimed to be the unique
Son of God. Thus, He claimed oneness and equality with God the Father.
Even His enemies fully understood His claims. They took strong exception to
His statements, saying, “You, being a man, make yourself out to be God”!
(John 10:33)

Jesus’ claim of deity is especially
significant in light of the fact that the founders of the world’s other
major religions did not make such a claim. Of course, anyone can claim
to be God. However, the amazing thing about Jesus is that His claim of
deity cannot be reasonably dismissed for, unlike any other man in history,
He has the credentials to substantiate His claim. The two main credentials
of Christ are His fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies and His
resurrection from the dead.

Throughout history there have been about 40
major claims by men to be the Jewish Messiah and Savior of the world. But
only one - Jesus Christ of Nazareth - appealed to fulfilled prophecy to
validate His claims. In all, over 300 Old Testament prophesies were
fulfilled in Christ.

Skeptics often question the legitimacy of
the Messianic prophecies. Unwilling to accept the supernatural origin of
the prophecies, they explain the prophesies explicit fulfillments in the
person of Christ as the work of conspirators who merely wrote the prophesies
at, or after, the time of Christ. To this allegation Professor Josh
McDowell replies:

If you are not satisfied with 450 B.C. as
the historic date for the completion of the Old Testament, then take into
consideration the following: The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures, was initiated in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285 -
246 B.C.). It is rather obvious that if you have a Greek translation
initiated in 250 B.C., then you had to have the Hebrew text from which it
was written. This will suffice to indicate that there was at least a
250 year gap between the prophecies being written down and their fulfillment
in the person of Christ.

Other critics claim the fulfilled
prophecies were just a lot of chance and coincidences. “Why, you could
probably find these same prophecies fulfilled in a number of famous men in
history,” they retort. Yes, perhaps you could find one or two
of these prophecies fulfilled in other men, but not all 60 of the
major prophecies. In fact, if you can find any man (living or dead) who can
fulfill only 20 of the major prophecies discussed in Messiah In Both
Testaments by Fred John Meldau, the Christian Victory Publishing Company
of Denver will give you a $1,000 reward. This is a nice sum of money.
However, before any people expend any effort to try to cash in on this
reward, I would suggest they take the time to read the book, Science
Speaks, by Peter Stoner. In the forward of Stoner’s book, H. Harold
Hartzler, of the American Scientific Affiliation wrote:

The manuscript for Science Speaks
has been carefully reviewed by a committee of the American Scientific
Affiliation members and by the Executive Council of the same group and has
been found, in general, to be dependable and accurate in regard to the
scientific material presented. The mathematical analysis included is based
upon principles of probability which are thoroughly sound and Professor
Stoner has applied these principles in a proper and convincing way.

To demonstrate that coincidence is ruled
out by the science of probability, Stoner applies mathematical probability
analysis to eight specific Messianic prophecies. In summation he says, “We
find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time
and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power.” To help
us grasp the immensity of this probability Stoner illustrates it by
supposing that:

We take 10 to the 17th power silver dollars
and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two
feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass
thoroughly all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can
travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say
that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right
one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these
eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their
day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.

Now these prophecies were either given by
inspiration of God or the prophets just wrote them as they thought they
should be. In such a case the prophets had just one chance in 10 to the
17th power of having them come true in any man, but they all came true in
Christ.

This means that the fulfillment of these
eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of those
prophecies to a definiteness which lacks only one chance in 10 to the 17th
power of being absolute.

Stoner then examines a total of 48
prophesies and says, “We find the chance that any one man fulfilled all 48
prophesies to be 1 in 10 to the 157th power. “This number is ten
million, quintillion, quintillion, quintillion, quintillion times greater
than the estimated number of atoms in the known universe. Suffice it to say
that these fulfilled prophesies were definitely not the product of chance.

Another objection raised by skeptics is
that Jesus deliberately attempted to fulfill the Messianic prophecies. Josh
McDowell responds:

This objection seems plausible until we
realize that many of the details of the Messiah’s coming were totally beyond
human control. For example, the place of birth. I can just hear Jesus in
Mary’s womb as she rode on the donkey: “Mom, we won’t make it...” When
Herod asked the chief priests and scribes, “Where is the Christ to be born?”
they said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the
prophet” (Matthew 2:5). The time of his coming. The manner of his birth.
Betrayal by Judas and the betrayal price. The manner of his death. The
people’s reaction, the mocking and spitting, the staring. The casting of
dice for his clothes. The non-tearing of his garment, etc. Half the
prophecies are beyond his fulfillment. He couldn’t work it out to be born
of the seed of the woman, the lineage of Shem, the descendants of Abraham,
etc. No wonder Jesus and the apostles appealed to fulfilled prophecy to
substantiate his claim.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A
Fact of History

Some people flippantly dismiss the
resurrection story claiming that, “It is not worthy of consideration because
it can’t be proved scientifically.” The mentality that modern humanity has
adopted is astounding! Somehow, many people in the twentieth century hold
the opinion that if something cannot be proven scientifically, it is not
true. Well, that assertion is not true! We need to
understand the difference between a scientific fact and a legal-historical
fact.

Scientific proof is based on the scientific
method of repeatable experimentation and observation.
Obviously, therefore, any event in history cannot be proved scientifically
because it is impossible to repeat and observe historical events under
controlled conditions in a laboratory. Accordingly, if the scientific
method was the only way of proving something, you couldn’t even prove that
you went to your job last week.

Legal-historical proof is based on showing
that something is a fact beyond a reasonable doubt. By this method, a
verdict is reached on the basis of the weight of the evidence. In other
words, it is shown that there is no reasonable basis for doubting the
decision. This depends on three types of testimony: written testimony,
oral testimony, and exhibits (such as a rifle, a bullet, fingerprints, a
diary, etc.). Using the legal method of determining facts, you could
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you went to your job last week: Your
friends saw you; you signed your name on dated material; your suggestions
were noted in the minutes of the board meeting; the boss remembers talking
with you.

The scientific method isn’t capable of
answering such questions as: “Did Julius Caesar fight the Gallic Wars?”;
“Was George Washington the first U.S. President?”; “Did Jesus Christ rise
from the dead?” Such questions are outside the realm of scientific proof.
So, we need to address such questions within the realm of legal-historical
proof. However, when we rely on the legal-historical method, we need to
check out the reliability of the testimonies. We have already seen that the
eyewitness accounts of the New Testament evangelists have been very
accurately transmitted through history. Therefore, we must now apply the
laws of legal evidence to the testimony of the New Testament evangelists to
see if their testimony would withstand rigorous legal scrutiny in a court of
law. In examining this question, I can quote no greater authority than Dr.
Simon Greenleaf, famous Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University during
the nineteenth century and one of the greatest legal minds in history.

Greenleaf authored a famous work entitled
A Treatise On The Law of Evidence, (1842) which was so excellent that
it is still considered by many to be the greatest single authority on
evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure.

Although Greenleaf was adamantly skeptical
of Christianity, some of his Christian law students challenged him to take
his own treatise on the laws of legal evidence and apply its precepts to the
testimony of the New Testament evangelists. Greenleaf accepted this
challenge, thinking that with his knowledge of the laws of evidence he would
easily debunk the testimony of the evangelists. However, much to his
surprise, Greenleaf found the testimony of the evangelists to be irrefutable
from a legal standpoint. As a result, Greenleaf was convinced that the
resurrection of Jesus Christ had to be one of the best established facts of
history and he thenceforth became an ardent follower of Jesus Christ.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brewer
said: “The existing evidence of Christ’s resurrection is satisfactory to
me. I have not examined it from the legal standpoint, but Greenleaf has
done so, and he is the highest authority on evidence cited in our courts.”

In 1846, while still Professor of Law at
Harvard, Greenleaf authored a book entitled, An Examination of the
Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in
Courts of Justice. In the following excerpt from this classic work,
Greenleaf explains why the nature of the evidence compelled him to accept
the resurrection as a legal-historical fact which was attested to by
truthful witnesses:

The credit due to the testimony of
witnesses depends upon, first, their honesty; secondly, their ability;
thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the
conformity of their testimony with experience, and fifthly, the coincidence
of their testimony with collateral circumstances.

Let the evangelists be tried by
these tests.

And first to their honesty. Here they are
entitled to the benefit of the general course of human experience, that men
ordinarily speak the truth when they have no prevailing motive or inducement
to the contrary. This presumption is applied in courts of justice, even to
witnesses whose integrity is not wholly free from suspicion; much more is it
applicable to the evangelists, whose testimony went against all their
worldly interests. The great truths which the apostles declared were that
Christ had risen from the dead and that only through repentance from sin and
faith in Him could men hope for salvation.

This doctrine they assert with one voice
everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of
the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their
Master had recently perished as a malefactor by the sentence of a public
tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole
world. The laws of every country were against the teachings of His
disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in
the world were against them. Propagating this faith, even in the most
inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt and
opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments
and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all
these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. One after another
was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with
increased vigor and resolution.

The annals of military warfare afford
scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience and unblenching
courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the ground of
their faith, and the evidences of the great truths which they asserted; and
these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and
terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have
persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually
risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they
knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been
deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to
discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood,
after it was known to them was, not only to encounter, for life, all the
evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of
inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of
good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of
happiness in this life or in the world to come.

Such conduct in the apostles would,
moreover, have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact that they possessed
the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show
them to have been men like all others in our race; swayed by the same
motives, animated by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by
the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations and
infirmities as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of
various understandings.

If then their testimony were not true there
was no possible motive for this fabrication. It would have been
irreconcilable with the fact that they were good men. But it is impossible
to read their writings and not feel that we are conversing with men
eminently holy, and of tender consciences, with men acting under an abiding
sense of the presence and omniscience of God, and of their accountability to
Him, living in His fear and walking in His ways. Now, though in a single
instance, a good man may fall when under strong temptation, yet he is not
found for years persisting in deliberate falsehood, asserted with the most
solemn appeals to God, without the slightest temptation or motive, and
against all the opposing interests which reign in the human breast.

If, on the contrary, they are supposed to
have been bad men, it is incredible that such men should have chosen this
form of imposture, enjoining, as it does, unfeigned repentance, the utter
forsaking and abhorrence of all falsehood and every other sin, the practice
of daily self-denial, self-abasement and self-sacrifice, the crucifixion of
the flesh with all its earthly appetites and desires, indifference to the
honor and hearty contempt of the vanities of the world; and inculcating
perfect purity of heart and life and intercourse of the soul with heaven.

It is incredible that bad men should invent
falsehood to promote the religion of the God of truth. The opposition is
suicidal.

If they believed in a future state of
retribution, a heaven and a hell thereafter, they took the most certain
course, if false witnesses, to secure the latter for their portion. And if,
still being bad men, they did not believe in future punishment, how came
they to invent falsehoods, the direct and certain tendency of which was to
destroy all their prospects of worldly honor and happiness and to insure
their misery in this life? From these absurdities there is no escape but in
the perfect confidence and admission that they were good men, testifying to
that which they had carefully observed and considered and well knew to be
true.

What is your personal evaluation of the
evidence? What is you decision concerning the empty tomb? Upon examining
the evidence from a judicial perspective, Lord Darling, former Chief Justice
of England, concluded that “there exists such overwhelming evidence,
positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury
in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is
true.”

Christ is not just another religious
leader. Unlike Budda, Confuscious, Mohammed, Krishna, or Zoroaster,
Christ’s body is not rotting in the grave. He arose! His resurrection
fulfilled prophecy and was the crowning proof of His claim to be the Creator
God manifest in human form. Because He lives He is available and powerful
to transform the lives of those who call on Him today. I know this with
certitude not just because of the facts of science and history but because
He changed my life! He freed me from a life of insecurity, rebellion,
hatred, and bitter cynicism. Christ transformed me into a man full of
security, peace, and, love. I no longer agonize over the crucial questions
of life: Who am I? Why am I here? What will happen to me when I die? I
finally know my true identity and that my life has wonderful meaning and
purpose. I am not just an accident - not just an animal. I was made in the
image of God my Creator, which gives me tremendous value, purpose, peace,
and a lasting security for through Christ I share a love relationship with
God that will last for time and eternity.

The Ultimate Verdict - Liar, Lunatic, or
Lord?

Ultimately we must all give a verdict
concerning the claims of Christ. Even an attempt to be “neutral” - to give
no decision - is still a verdict which carries consequences for Christ said,
“He that is not for me is against me” (Matt. 12:30). There is no middle
ground.

Any man who claims to be God can have only
three possible identities. If he knows his claims are false, he is a liar.
If he does not realize his claims are false, he is deranged - a lunatic.
Or, if he made the claims and verified his claims then he is Lord and
God! These are the only three options possible because if Christ’s claims
to be God were false then He had to be a terrible liar or a pathetic
lunatic. Therefore those who reject His deity cannot salve their
consciences by saying that at least they respect Christ as a great man and a
great moral teacher. Christ never left the option open to respect Him as a
teacher. He never intended to leave this option open. In light of Christ’s
explicit claims to be the Creator, and the Savior of the world you must
spit at Him and detest Him as a diabolical liar, or you must pity Him
as a deranged lunatic or you must fall on your knees, submit to Him
and worship Him as Lord and God. These are truly your only options. What
will you do with the only man in history who not only claimed to be God
but also displayed the credentials to validate His claim? What will you
do with Jesus Christ